Giving out Yards

The Pivot presents: Yard & Crafts, a new online beer shop based out of Brickyard, Dublin 16's finest beer pub. Two exclusives from DOT ensured I had an order in on launch day, delivered promptly and intact.

I was sold a pup with Turn The Lights Off, a barrel-aged sour ale with pineapple. The website promised me it was in a glow-in-the-dark bottle -- something I prize highly in beer -- but the bottle did not glow. With little chance of a refund on that basis, I turned to the liquid inside. It also doesn't shine, pouring a muddy brown and completely flat in the glass. The aroma is sweet and tannic, like cold sugary tea. It really wasn't walking the walk for a €16 bottle so far. The flavour went a long way towards redeeming that. The advertised pineapple is very pleasant and very fresh. I served it cold, and with the light body it became much more refreshing than any 8.2% ABV beer has a right to be. The sourness is pitched at pineapple levels too: just enough to accentuate the sweetness and offset the alcohol. High attenuation brings a balancing dryness, with more tannins for extra refreshment. Overall it's a summery sort of punch, made for sharing in the outdoor sunshine; enjoyable, but don't expect anything too serious.

The second bottle was Sherry Pale, with its yellow spray job. The sparse label tells us it's a "barrel aged imp pale" and 7.8% ABV. The word "sherry" had me expecting big oxidation, but of course that's not going to be the case with a sherry-barrel beer, necessarily. And indeed it's a mellow and fruit-driven affair, showing notes of white grape and lychee. A dry spice complexity slips in behind this, bringing nutmeg and gunpowder tea. The final aspect is a floral topping of rosewater and jasmine. None of it is extreme, and while it's sweet, it's not cloying. It's also almost totally flat, and I can't help feeling that a little sparkle would have made it more interesting. A possible use case is as a lighter alternative to a botrytised dessert wine.

Both are excellent examples of DOT's highly creative output, though I'd have been as happy to get them in smaller cans. I'm not doing much by way of ceremonious presentation at the moment, and maybe these are better saved until that returns to our beer-drinking lives.